Pets provide a great deal of joy and companionship to persons of all ages, including the elderly and infirm. No matter what the age, it has always been a challenge to dispose of fecal matter.
Many types of devices have been developed to enable a person to pick up and facilitate removal of many different types of objects without the person having to come into direct contact with the object. With an increasingly elderly population, attempts have been made to develop hand operated refuse pickup devices, typically referred to as “poop scoopers,” “pooper scoopers,” or the like, which employ a long enough handle to enable the user to scoop or pick up refuse while standing up.
While prior long handled refuse pickup devices have been designed for outdoor use, with an ever growing indoor pet population, a need has arisen for a long handled refuse pickup device that can not only be used outdoors but which is particularly well suited for indoor use. One such refuse pickup device capable of such dual use is the refuse or poop scooper disclosed in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 8,235,434, which has an elongate handle with a pair of relatively movable scoop jaws that are biased in an open position when not in use to enable the scooper to be stood uprightly on a flat surface in a convenient ready-to-use position.
While the scooper disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,235,434 is an advancement over other prior art scoopers, improvements nonetheless remain desirable. What is needed is a long-handled refuse or poop scooper with scoop jaws used to scoop an object into a chamber formed by the closed jaws that is more sanitary than prior scoopers. What also is desired is a long-handled refuse or poop scooper that can be stood uprightly in a ready to use condition whether the scoop jaws are open or closed.